There is probably no area of greater contention
than the truth about Freemasonry. Many churches have condemned Freemasonry
as non-Christian and have prohibited any of its members from being members.
Freemasons, on the other hand, have consistently maintained that, while
Freemasonry is not a religion, it is not inconsistent with the teachings
of the Bible. They point out that Freemasonry draws much material from
the Bible and holds it up to be a great guiding light of all Masons of
all ages. Freemasons have also claimed as members many pastors of churches
throughout history; indeed, today's Southern Baptist Convention literature
reports that at least 40% of active Southern Baptist Ministers are also
Freemasons. Freemasons have traditionally answered their critics in one
of two ways:

If the critic is not a Freemason, his
criticism is dismissed. Freemasons say he could not possibly know the
truth about the society because he has never been a member.

If the critic is a member which has
left the society, Freemasons dismiss his criticism by saying that, for
some unknown reason, he has developed an hatred against the society.
This hatred not only caused him to leave Freemasonry, it has caused
him to print absolute lies in an attempt to discredit and destroy the
society.

What is the truth? And, is there any way
in which to absolutely determine the truth? Happily, the answer is that
"Yes", we can objectively determine the truth. The truth can
be firmly ascertained by several avenues.

1. We can examine the writings of Freemasonry's
most ardent admirers and promoters. We have already done this on January
11 of this year. We quoted the writings of several New Age authors who
believed that Freemasonry was one of the greatest spiritual lights in
the world. The most important of these New Age authors was Alice Bailey,
who was the most important spiritual leader of what is now referred to
now as the New Age Movement, from approximately 1915-1950. Bailey's book,
"The Externalization of the Hierarchy", has been followed for
many decades as the blueprint for achieving the New World Order. We can
see that this level of faith in this book is founded upon its supernatural
authorship. What supernatural authorship, you ask? On page 631, we suddenly
are told that the authorship of all Alice Bailey's books, dating from
November 19, 1919, was from a demon by the name of Master D.K. Bailey's
writings are demonic automatic writings which occur when a demon-possessed
person is bodily taken over and the demon writes the intended message
through their hands and fingers.

What does Master D.K. say about Freemasonry?

"the Masonic Fraternity ... is ...
the home of the Mysteries, and the seat of the initiation...It is a far
more occult organization than can be realized and is intended to be the
training school for the coming advanced occultists ..."(p. 511).
This is dynamic truth!! This demon is stating that Freemasonry is the
training school for the coming advanced occultist. Not only is Freemasonry
not Christian, it is now identified as an occultic training school!! But,
Master D.K. has other wonderful things to say about Masonry.

"... Mysteries will be restored
to outer expression through the medium of the Church and the Masonic Fraternity...When
the Great One comes with His disciples and initiates, we
shall have the restoration of the Mysteries ..." In
other words, the Great One, the Anti-Christ will restore the ancient Mysteries,
which the Masonic Lodge has preserved these many centuries, as his New
World Order Religion.

2. The second method of determining the
truth about Freemasonry is to examine their own writings, comparing
them with Biblical doctrines. God repeatedly tells us to compare everything
we encounter in this world against the unchanging Word of God, to see
whether it comes from God or from the Satan. However, it is exceedingly
difficult to examine Masonry's own writings, because Freemasonry is a
secret organization which has very successfully hidden its own writings
from the outside world.

However, God has been good in causing some
excellent original Masonic material to fall into our hands. We shall examine
Freemasonry from several Masonic writings today:

An Introduction to a Masonic Bible.
One of our Independent Baptist Fellowship Pastors discovered this Bible
in one of his pews following a morning service. He tried repeatedly
to locate the person listed in the front of the Bible, but could not.
Wh ile the Bible itself does not appear to be any different, the Introduction
provides great spiritual understanding as to the true nature of Freemasonry.
In fact, after studying this Introduction, we simply cannot understand
how a trained seminarian could not understand the non-Christian basis
of Freemasonry.

Secondly, we will be quoting from one
of the greatest Masonic books of all time, Albert Pike's "Morals
And Dogma". Albert Pike is considered one of the great geniuses
of Freemasonry, and this book is considered one of the great spiritual
Freemasonry books ever. Pike published this book in 1871; our copy was
published by the authority of the "Supreme Council of the Thirty-Third
Degree For The Southern Jurisdiction Of The United States" in March,
1919.

God inspired His Word so that It would
be an anchor to all true believers. God's Word, considered in its totality,
is designed by God to be the beginning and the end of all things spiritual.
This is the reason God repeatedly warned against adding any thing to His
Word or subtracting anything.

This, in a nutshell, is what Satan does
to deceive people and lead them away from God's Truth. On the one hand,
Satan takes God's Truth and adds interpretation to it, thus creating deception.
Thus, you will see much Scripture quoted in occultic literature, especially
Freemasonry. However, this quoted Scripture is either taken out of context
or is reinterpreted according to the so-called occultic "principles
of Mysticism". This principle is nothing more than a Satanic
reinterpretation of God's Truth. Thus, Satan distorts God's Truth by adding
to it.

But, Satan also deceives by very cunningly
and subtly subtracting from God's Word. In many instances, it is very
difficult to ascertain what, if anything, has been omitted. The most infamous
of this type of omission is the false teaching that God's Nature is one-dimensional,
that It is all Love. But, as we proceed with our study of Freemasonry,
we shall see several examples of this practice of deception through omission.

We need to make one final point before
we begin our study. Small points of false doctrine or omission
matter a great deal. The Bible repeatedly warns that just a small
amount of false doctrine ruins the entire loaf of dough. Most people will
attempt to dismiss individual instances of error, saying, "That is
such a small error; we can ignore it, because so much else is truth".
We cannot afford to ignore seemingly small points of error for any reason.
This leads us to a corolla ry truth in studying the false doctrine of
Freemasonry. No amount of Truth, no matter how large it may be, can make
up for the error which it contains.

Let us now begin our study of the Introduction
to the Masonic Bible. This Introduction begins with the Mason's Creed,
which is "an expression of the simplest form of the faith of Masonry
..." Wait a minute!! Masonry has always claimed that it is not a
religion. This word "faith", especially used in this context,
always carries the connotation of religion. Thus, from the beginning,
Masonry declares itself to be a religion. At this point, we must look
at Albert Pike's "Moral s And Dogma". On page 213, Pike states,
"Every Masonic Lodge is a temple of religion; and its teachings are
instruction of religion." Masonry considers itself a religion, its
many lies to the contrary notwithstanding.

The Introduction to this Masonic Bible
continues with a listing of the key Masonic Beliefs. We do not have the
time here to list all these beliefs, but will list only three of great
interest:

* "There is one God, the Father
of all men".

While there is truth in this statement,
this is also a perfect example of great omission. Normal Protestant affirmation
in the belief in God always affirms the Truth of the Trinity: Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit. Every occulticsystem separates God
the Father from the other two parts of the Trinity, as this statement
does. This separation is accomplished very subtly, by constantly naming
the name of God the Father while hardly ever mentioning Jesus' Name. This
fact is devastatingly critical, because the Apostle John states in 1 John
2:22-23, "Who is liar as he who denies that Jesus is the Christ.
He is the antichrist who [habitually] denies and refuses to acknowledge
the Father and the Son. No one who [habitually] denies the Son even has
the Father." By this definition, Freemasonry is advancing the cause
of Anti-Christ. This is the reason that New Age leaders, like the demon
Master D.K., admire Freemasonry so much. Masonry is advancing the cause
of Anti-Christ, the "Great One" which we quoted above.

Let us now continue with a further examination
of the Masonic Beliefs as enunciated in the Introduction to the Masonic
Bible.

"Character determines destiny".
Greater false doctrine cannot exist; it affects the eternal destiny
of precious human souls. Jesus emphatically declares in John 3:18-19
that the basis for deciding one's eternal destiny is whether t hey accepted
Jesus, the Light of the world. "Good" character can exist
in a person who is not saved.

"Man is immortal".
This is a partial truth, since our souls never die, but word definition
does not allow this interpretation. My Webster's Dictionary defines
"immortal" as "not mortal"; it defines "mortal"
as "to die". Therefore the meaning of immortal is "to
not die". Certainly, this meaning can not be applied to man, since
all men physically die. This is precisely the reason that the word "immortal"
has always been applied to God, never to man. Therefore, the Masons
are very subtly saying that man is god, and does not really die. Indeed,
as do most occultists, the Masons believe each man can be "perfected"
until he reaches the point where his consciousness level has been sufficiently
raised to godhead. Furthermore, Freemasonry teaches that men are reincarnated,
another occultic teaching.

At this point, I can hear many Masons saying
that they have never heard any such teaching, and they are right. One
of the major reasons Freemasonry is so difficult to expose is that they
deceive their own members. Leaders of each lodge are constantly evaluating
their members, to determine which are capable of learning more "truth"
about Freemasonry. If a man is evaluated as not being spiritually ready
to receive the truth, he is either not promoted or he is promoted, but
given different materials to study than another who was judged to be ready.
Again, Pike's respected Masonic book, "Morals and Dogma" provide
great light on this important subject of the deliberate deception of their
own members. Listen carefully to Pike's wo rds on page 104. Notice, in
this passage, that Albert Pike also states Masonry is a Pagan Mystery
religion. Listen carefully:

"Masonry, like all the Religions,
all the Mysteries ..., conceals its secrets from all except the
Adepts and Sages, or the Elect, and uses false explanations and misinterpretations
of its symbols to misleadthose who deserve only to be mislead
...Truth is not for those who are unworthy or unable to receive it, or
would pervert it." This absolutely incredible statement means exactly
what it says; Freemasonry misleads all people whom its Adepts determine
could not accept the Pagan truth, even its own members. But, Pike
continues, and this time he defames God. "So God Himself incapacitatesmany men ...and leads the masses away from the highest Truth ..."
This statement simultaneously defames God's Nature and reveals the occultic
nature of Freemasonry. First, God has clearly set out a simple Plan of
Salvation that the masses could clearly understand. In fact, God's anger
is over arrogant human pride, and it is only from these type people
that God ever hid any spiritual truth. On the other hand, Freemasonryclearly believes the old occultic lie that true spiritual truth is
only meant for those few who were willing to submit to the Mysteries,
going through their many degrees to achieve "Illumination."

Remember Pike's words, that "Masonry
... conceals its secrets from all except the Adepts and Sages ..."
This is Satan's religion, where he misleads the few arrogantly proud with
perverted doctrine, and then lies to the rest of the membership an d to
all who aren't members. Pike has also revealed that deliberate lying
is Masonic morality!!

Now, let us examine the great omissions
of this Masonic Belief statement. Nowhere in this statement of belief
do we see any reference to:

Man's Inherent Sinfulness

Jesus Christ as Son of God, as Savior,
or Redeemer

Ultimate judgment

Eternal punishment

All these critical issues are conveniently
eliminated, and very few people would ever understand the difference.
As I read the entire Introduction to this Masonic Bible, I very abruptly
realized that the name of Jesus Christ was never mentioned, not once.
How can this be?!! Jesus Christ is the supreme reason and message
of both Old and New Testaments. Jesus was the fulfillment of all Old Testament
symbolism and prophecies. His glory is shouted in every chapter in the
New Testament. In eternity, all redeemed creation will continuously shout
and sing His praises. How could His wonderful name be completely eliminated
from the Introduction to the Masonic Bible? The truth about Freemasonry
is becoming more clear, is it not?

The next section of the Introduction is
entitled, "The Great Light In Masonry"; it teaches the importance
of the Holy Bible to Freemasonry. "Within the covers of the Holy
Bible are found those principles of morality which lay the foundation
upon which to build a righteous life...that he diligently study therein
to learn the way to everlasting life".

While we find nothing here about which
to quarrel, we shake our heads at the irreconcilable differences between
this statement and the statements in Pike's book, "Morals and Dogma",
quoted above. Certainly, the Holy Bible never teaches the "virtue"
of deliberate lying.

After expending great and flowery language
upon the importance of spiritual light of the Bible, this section closes
with the abrupt introduction of two additional spiritual lights; suddenly,
instead of Masonry being guided by the one light of the Bible , there
are three guiding lights -- the Bible, the "perfect square",
and the "extended compass". These spiritual lights are not explained
but are definitely placed on the same level of importance as the Bible.
Furthermore, this is a splendid example of how Freemasonry takes the truth
of the Bible and goes beyond it, to expound further "truths",
disobeying God's many injunctions not to add to His revealed Word.

The next section of the Introduction is
entitled, "Bible Presentation", and reveals much fatal error
in the doctrines of Freemasonry. The author of reveals Masonic teachings
about the origin of the Bible. He states, "... the church and religion
did not grow out of the Bible. The Bible grew out of religion and the
church." Excuse me?!! My Bible says in John 1:1, that, "In the
beginning was the Word ... and the Word was God ... All things were made
by Him ..." Before God laid the foundations of the universe, His
Word, His principles, and His doctrine, existed. Out of the Word of God
came the written canon and the true Church. To suggest otherwise is simply
a lie of Satan, and it allows the door to "further revelation"
to open wide. Stay with us as we show you how really wide this open door
has become.

At the end of the third paragraph, the
author states two elements of truth and one of falsehood. "So the
Great Light ... is ... a whole library...with the revelation of God's
love for man, His purpose for man, and man's effort to reach up to Him."
; We would agree with the first two statements, but profoundly disagree
with the third, that man is making an effort to reach up to God. The Bible
teaches a completely different story. It says that man's heart is inherently
evil, that his every imagining is evil. Given his choice, man would seek
only to satisfy his lower nature, telling God to get lost. Man has hope
for eternal life with God only because of God's actions toward man, in
the person of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Further, these three teachings of Masonry
omit the very critical teaching that God's Nature is more than just love.
The Bible is full of God's glory, His hatred of sin, and His inevitable
physical judgment of sinful man. This is an omission of major proportions,
and it has resulted in the common belief of our day that God is all-loving
and could never condemn anyone to eternal punishment in Hell. Now you
know where this lie originated -- in Freemasonry.

The next section in this Introduction is
entitled, "The Bible In Masonry", and it drops several bombshells.
First, in paragraph 2, the author suddenly states again that the Bible
is One of the great lights in the order; however, this time, h e does
not speak of the "perfect square" or the "extended compass".
Rather, he identifies other sources of spiritual light which guides Freemasonry.
"...by the very honor which Masonry pays to the Bible, it teaches
us to revere every book of faith by which men find help for today and
hope for the morrow, joining hands with the man of Islam as he takes oath
on the Koran, and with the Hindu as he makes covenant with God upon the
book that he loves best". It is difficult to contemplate greater
blasphemy against Jesus Christ than this statement, that other religions
of the world are equal to Christianity. Jesus Himself stated in many ways
that, not only was He God, but that He was the only way to salvation.
Remember, w hen Jesus used the words, "I AM", He was saying
that He was God, because "I AM" was the name which God gave
Himself originally, at the Burning Bush. Jesus applied this "I AM"
in the following verses:

John 6:35, 41, 48, 51. Jesus repeatedly
described Himself as the "Bread of Life" which came down from
Heaven.

John 8:58. Jesus claimed His eternity
past, as God, when He said, "Before Abraham was, I AM."

John 9:5. Jesus said He was the "light
of the world". He did not say He was one of the lights,
but the light. In every occultic system since the time of Jesus,
Satan has implanted this false doctrine.

John 9:39. Jesus emphasized the judgment
side of His character, when He stated, "For judgment I AM come
into this world". Again, in every occultic system, Satan has ignored
Jesus' judgment.

John 10:7-10. Jesus declared, "I
am the door of the sheep". In verse 9, Jesus said, "... by
Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved".

John 14:6. Just to ensure no one missed
the point that He was the only path to eternal salvation, Jesus finally
stated, "I AMtheWay, theTruth,
and theLife: no man cometh unto the Father but
by Me".

Think carefully about this one further
moment. To claim that there are other equally valid paths to eternal salvation
is to emphatically declare that Jesus' horrible death on the cruel cross
was unnecessary. Indeed, many occultists believe that the human Jesus,
upon Whom the Christ Consciousness descended at His baptism, lost control
of the situation and suffered martyrdom upon the cross. So, Jesus was
not Omnipotent God Who was in control of every detail on the road to the
cross, plus He was actually stupid to have allowed Himself to suffer such
a fate.

No other teaching of Freemasonry does greater
damage to the Person of Jesus Christ and His Plan of Salvation than this.
To finally ensure that no one misses this point, the author of this Introduction,
restates this false doctrine in bold words that no one can misunderstand.

"What Masonry knows ... religions
are many, but Religion is one...Therefore, it invites to its altar men
of all faiths, knowing that, if they use different names for the 'Nameless
One of a hundred names', they are yet praying to the one God and Father
of all; also, that while they read different volumes, they are ... reading
the same vast Book of the Faith of Man ...(But) with us, the Bible is
supreme. What Homer was to the Greeks, what the Koran is to the Arabs
... the grand old Bible is to us."

This is the End Time uniting of all the
world's religions into one False Religious System of Anti-Christ. It is
no wonder that Master D.K., writing through Alice Bailey, thinks so highly
of the role of Freemasonry in establishing the New World Order Religion
of the Great One, the Biblical Anti-Christ, whose name will be Maitreya.

The Introduction to this Masonic Bible
ends with a section entitled, "Scriptural Quotations And Allusions
In The Masonic Ritual". This section details the origin of the myth
of the legend of the Master Builder, Hiram Abiff, of King Solomon's temple.
Other than twisting some Scripture, this section reveals no further false
doctrine.

As you can easily see, this Introduction
to a Masonic Bible contains enough false doctrine that we are forced to
ask the inevitable question, "How could any trained seminarian read
this material without recognizing that Freemasonry is not Christian, without
understanding that Freemasonry does such great damage to the person and
teachings of Jesus Christ that it can only be described as Anti-Christ?"
Yet, many trained seminarians over the years, and the Southern Baptist
Convention of today, have been so mislead. The only answer possible is
that these trained pastors have not insisted upon a reading of Scripture
and of Freemasonry material which is properly narrow. Too easily
have they dismissed examples of false doctrine, preferring t o focus on
the many more examples of True Scripture contained within Masonry's writings.
And countless souls have been, and will continue to be, deceived and mislead.

We want to close with a quick examination
of two other teachings as found in Pike's "Morals and Dogma".

Pike identifies Lucifer as the
source of Freemasonry's spiritual light. On page 321,
Pike boldly states, "Lucifer, the Light-bearer! Strange and mysterious
name given to the Spirit of Darkness! Lucifer, the Son of the Morning!
Is it he who bears the Light ...? Doubt it not!" Even though Pike
admits the name Lucifer was given to the Spirit of Darkness, he still
states it is Lucifer whom Freemasonry chooses as its spiritual light.

Pike denies God's Truth that His Word
is eternal, as he states on page 37, "... all truths are Truths
of Period not truths for eternity". To the Mason, there is no eternal
truth; each generation of men must discover the truths that work for
them. This is "Situational Ethics", against which the true
Church is struggling in today's public schools and our Mass Media. Now
you know where "Situational Ethics" originated, from Freemasonry,
taught two hundred years ago.

Finally, we give the honor of the final
truth about Freemasonry to Satan himself. Satanic leader, Anton LaVey,
states quite clearly in his book, "The Satanic Rituals: Companion
To The Satanic Bible", on page 21, "Satanic ritual is a blend
of Gnostic, Cabalistic, Hermetic, and Masonic elements ..."

By now, it should be abundantly clear that
Freemasonry is a most deceptive, Anti-Christian organization. No true
born-again Christian can be part of Freemasonry. If you have been deceived
up to this point, you can be deceived no longer. Your eternal destiny
might very well depend upon your obedience to Jesus' command to the Christians
in the Great Tribulation, "Come out from her (the false Babylon)
... that you may not share in her plagues ..." (Revelation 18:4).

Daily, we come closer to the climax of
the Ages, the appearance of Anti-Christ, and Great Tribulation, all of
which has been greatly aided by Freemasonry.